Anthracite Coal Miners of Eastern PA

[mrbill4]

My grandfather Frank E. Pletcher Sr was a pump inspector for the Hudson Coal Company and worked out of the main office in Scranton. As a young kid, I remember going with him to the office and seeing a whole bunch of tables where the engineers would plot out different diagrams. He would take me with him all over to different sites and I would meet all kinds of men in many different capacities. The thing that fascinated me the most was riding with my mother to Marvin and waiting for him to come out of the mines at dusk. He always emphasized to me how important the rats were in the mines. He said that if you saw rats it was comparatively safe and if you didn't, it was time to get out ASAP. He always carried his helmet and lights (with big silver colored metal batteries) in the trunk of his car until he retired.

My dad, Frank E. Pletcher Jr. worked on what they called "the line gang" for the Hudson Coal Company whose job it was to set-up and maintain the power lines going to the various sites. I could tell you many funny and some not so funny stories. I'm not sure I'm spelling all their names correctly, but the other members of "the line gang" at that time (late 1940's, early 1950's) were Jack Moffit, Tony Gilrhen pronounced gill rain and Jack Ham from Olyphant, Pa. Subsequent to leaving the Hudson Coal Co., my dad used to decorate the Scranton Times Tower with Christmas Lights at Christmas time after which he became an electrical engineer for Ford Aerospace and eventually the Chief Engineer at Keystone Junior College.

[Voytas1320]

Just curious. Trying to find out info on my family history. Does anybody know or heard of Peter (whitewash) Voytas. He was my fathers, father. Worked in the coal mines there. Finding out he might of bought the coal mines. Possibly an owner?? Please let me know. Thank you

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by Voytas1320

Just curious. Trying to find out info on my family history. Does anybody know or heard of Peter (whitewash) Voytas. He was my fathers, father. Worked in the coal mines there. Finding out he might of bought the coal mines. Possibly an owner?? Please let me know. Thank you

Try sending a private message to: //www.city-data.com/forum/membe...an-233677.html. Thecoalman is one of our most informed posters on coal and coal mining.

[DavidWebb]

Originally Posted by Voytas1320

Just curious. Trying to find out info on my family history. Does anybody know or heard of Peter (whitewash) Voytas. He was my fathers, father. Worked in the coal mines there. Finding out he might of bought the coal mines. Possibly an owner?? Please let me know. Thank you

I just did a search on Ancestry.com and there are hits for his name here in PA:

https://www.ancestry.com/search/?name=Peter_Voytas

I also suggest making a thread post just on him so that if anyone does know him or have heard of him can post there....

[toobusytoday]

For people search go to this forum, please: //www.city-data.com/forum/people-search/ I too would suggest sending Thecoalman a direct message.

[thecoalman]

While I probably know more than most my knowledge of history is quite limited for specific questions like that. There are a lot of groups and organizations that may help. The anthracite region spans quite a distance and if you know the mine name/location I would first try local organizations in that area. Up until even about 2000 there was literally hundreds of small mines each operated by handful of people so tracking something like that down may be difficult.

[jimazee]

Though you may not need this info, a tool I recently came across that sometimes help people looking for ancestors info is Find A Grave
( www.FindAGrave.com ) there may be others similar to this.

I found it useful for some general searches that helped me find people (and I actually ADDED people and info for some of my ancestors). Note that it depends on 'agents' to register cemeteries and occupants etc. so some info is there and very complete, and much is still missing.

You may not need it but others may find it helpful...so posting here as general info.

(As another random thought...the variations in spelling of names coming through Ellis Island is well known. Families often changed them themseleves for simplifiaction or other reasons. For example here, I know of families here named Woytos and Voytko. They may have absolutely no relation to Voytos ...but wanted to make the point about names changing being common back then.)

Happy hunting.

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by jimazee

Though you may not need this info, a tool I recently came across that sometimes help people looking for ancestors info is Find A Grave
( www.FindAGrave.com ) there may be others similar to this.

I found it useful for some general searches that helped me find people (and I actually ADDED people and info for some of my ancestors). Note that it depends on 'agents' to register cemeteries and occupants etc. so some info is there and very complete, and much is still missing.

You may not need it but others may find it helpful...so posting here as general info.

(As another random thought...the variations in spelling of names coming through Ellis Island is well known. Families often changed them themseleves for simplifiaction or other reasons. For example here, I know of families here named Woytos and Voytko. They may have absolutely no relation to Voytos ...but wanted to make the point about names changing being common back then.)

Happy hunting.

I wanted to toss in one note about name changing: Sometimes the census takers would write down a name phonetically and sometimes they would not write the name down until they walked or rode their horse many miles back to their office (then they would transcribe the name the best they could). There were other times, like you point out, that our immigrants just wanted to simplify their names. It was also legal for the old census takers to ask a neighbor who lived at a house and sometimes the neighbors spelled the names wrong: https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en...s-taker-wrong/.